The Keeper of the Door eBook

Nick smiled and rose. “I shouldn’t
be too hard on him, kiddie. Doubtless he has
his reasons.”

“I should like to know what they are,”
said Olga.

He stooped for a final kiss. “I daresay—­if
you were to ask him prettily—­he would tell
you.”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t,” she said.
“He never tells me anything, even if I beg him.”
She slipped her arms round his neck and held him closely
for a moment. “Nick darling, you will work
that lovely scheme of ours if you possibly can—­promise
me!—­in spite of anything Max may say or
do!”

“You don’t mind hurting his feelings?”
asked Nick.

“Oh, well,”—­she hesitated—­“he
couldn’t care all that. It’s only
his love of interference.”

“Or his love of you? I wonder which!”
whispered Nick.

“Nick! Nick!” Wonder, dismay, incredulity,
mingled in the cry.

But Nick had already slipped free from the clinging
of her arms, and he did not pause in answer.

“Good-night, Olga mia!” he called
back to her softly from the door. “Don’t
forget to knock on the wall if you feel squeamish!”

And with that he was gone. The latch clicked
behind him, and she was alone.

CHAPTER XI

THE IMPOSSIBLE

Could it be true? Sleeping and waking, sleeping
and waking, all through the night Olga asked herself
the question; and when morning came she was still
unconvinced. Nothing in Max’s manner had
ever given her cause to imagine for an instant that
he cared for her. Never for an instant had she
seriously imagined that he could care. Till quite
recently she had believed that a very decided antipathy
had existed between them. True, it had not thriven
greatly since the writing of her note; but that had
been an event of only two days before. She was
sure he had not cared for her before that. He
could not have begun to care since! And if he
had, how in wonder could Nick have come to know?

Certainly he knew most things. His uncanny shrewdness
had moved her many a time before to amazement and
admiration. This quickness of intellect was hers
also, but in a far smaller degree. She could leap
to conclusions herself and often find them correct.
But Nick—­Nick literally swooped upon the
truth with unerring precision. She had never
known him to miss his mark. But this time—­could
he be right this time? It was such a monstrous
notion. Its very contemplation bewildered her,
carried her off her feet, made her giddy. She
began to be a little frightened, to cast back her
thoughts over all her intercourse with Max to ascertain
if she had ever given him the smallest reason for loving
her. Most emphatically she had never felt drawn
towards him. In fact, she had often been repelled.
In all their skirmishes she had invariably had the
worst of it. He had simply despised her resistance,
treating it as a thing of nought. And yet—­there